Poem for Mothers Day New Year’s Day I light this Yahrzeit candle. Flame stares at me, the yellow eye of death, a reminder: I’ve known you longer dead than alive. Standing in the kitchen with you at six years old, I watched you light a candle for your mother— “Why don’t we blow it out?” I asked. A memorial candle encased in glass wick buried in jaundiced wax, braided synthetic fibers of years spent together apart distilled into the tiniest flame blazing toward heaven, a commemoration of life cut short. What you didn’t say is: this is how we keep the dead how we say their prayers how we spill our grief— all this religion tradition I don’t understand. The Lake, September, 2013 thelakepoetry.co.uk/poetry-archive/September/ with Stephanie Yankwitt
Posted on: Sun, 11 May 2014 13:24:47 +0000
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